In the report of a new study, Professor Christopher Trudeau of Thomas M. Cooley Law School explained that he often advises students to write in plain English. Recently, he set out to test the soundness of that advice by learning what clients really think when lawyers use complex legalese.

Funded by an ALWD grant, Trudeau's empirical study revealed that many clients “have struggled to understand their attorneys at some point.” Trudeau concluded that “when attorneys use complex constructions or complicated terms, they put unnecessary barriers in the way of [clients'] understanding.”